The Association of Graduate Art Students (AGAS) at the University of Georgia, in partnership with the Georgia Museum of Art, invites emerging scholars to submit proposals for papers that contribute to a discussion of love in the visual arts. The symposium will be held in conjunction with the exhibition Life, Love, and Marriage Chests in Renaissance Florence, on view at the Georgia Museum of Art March 9—May 26, 2019.

Our symposium will expand the scope of the exhibition by addressing attempts to articulate love throughout the history of visual and material culture. Expressing the many facets of this complex emotion has been a preoccupation in the arts for generations, with artists across genres and media vying to capture the elusive sentiment. Through myth, allegory, and even religion, depictions of love mark cultures’ interpersonal values, both in public and in private. The arts of love reveal society’s most intimate desires, depicting narratives that codify their ideals. From beauty, sexuality, and family to status, agency, and identity, our symposium seeks submissions that exemplify the myriad archetypes related to love.

Submissions that discuss specific works of art or themes related to Life, Love, and Marriage Chests in Renaissance Florence are encouraged. Other relevant topics include but are not limited to:

Current graduate students and other emerging scholars should submit abstracts (maximum 300 words) and an up-to-date CV to uga.symposium@gmail.com by November 30, 2018. Applicants will be notified of the committee’s decision by December 31, 2018.

Life, Love, and Marriage Chests in Renaissance Florence and related educational programs are made possible by the W. Newton Morris Charitable Foundation and the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art.

This conference is co-organized by The Medici Archive Project and the Museo Nazionale di San Marco.

Since the late Medieval period, members of female religious communities have engaged in the making of small-scale paintings, or miniatures, on a wide variety of supports. Many of these miniatures were produced to ornament liturgical and devotional books; others graced objects such as candles and altar frontals. While nuns’ activity in this realm has been documented quite extensively in northern Europe, the Italian production of miniatures is less understood, aside from case studies of a few individuals such as Eufrasia Burlamacchi (1482 –1548). It is hoped that this conference will not only consolidate what is known about the production of miniatures by Italian nuns, but also catalyze new research. To encourage reflection upon the continuity of technical practices and models across arbitrary period divisions, the time frame of this conference has been extended broadly. Insight obtained through technical examination or the material analysis of nuns’ artworks will be especially welcome.

Papers may be given in Italian or English.

Suggested Paper Topics:

-Technical studies identifying pigments, binding media, or supports for miniatures produced in or for Italian convents
-New attributions of miniatures to Italian nun artists
-Biographical studies on Italian nuns who made miniatures
-Analyses of the visual or textual sources of the iconography of Italian nuns’ miniatures
-Miniature painting considered within the context of liturgy, devotional practices, and the organization of the conventual life of Italian nuns.
-The commissioning, gifting, and circulation of works containing Italian nuns’ miniatures
-Comparitive studies of miniatures and Italian nuns’ work in other media such as embroidery
-Considerations of the technical know-how and workshop materials available to Italian nuns, as well as their collaborations with artisans outside the convent
-Reflections on problematic issues in the current historiography on the topic, and on methodology

The conference will take place on both the afternoon of Thursday, October 11, and the morning of Friday, October 12, 2018, and it will be held in the Biblioteca di San Marco in Florence.

To apply: please send a CV and a brief abstract of your paper, in English or Italian, to: barker@medici.org by January 15, 2018. Decisions will be announced within three weeks. Limited funding may be available for travel and lodging.

Call for Papers: NUME, Research Group on the Latin Middle Ages, 4th Cycle, June 2018

NUME, Research Group on the Latin Middle Ages, organizes the IV Cycle of Medieval Studies, June 2018.

The goal is to offer a broad overview of the current situation of Italian and international medievalist studies. Issues which are related to many different aspects of the medieval period (V-XV century) can be addressed: history, philosophy, politics, literature, art, archeology, material culture, new technologies applied to medieval studies and so on;
Contributions with two or more speakers are accepted;
Contributions will be structured in specific panels.

How to apply” Participation proposals must have abstract format, in Italian or English, not exceeding 300 words. They will have to be sent, along with a CV, by January 15, 2018 at the following e-mail address:info@nuovomedioevo.it

Proposals will be evaluated by the Review Board on the basis of quality, interest and originality. The judgment of the Commission will be unquestionable.

The Commission will notify the convocation for the speakers considered suitable by February 1, 2018.

The selected speakers will be asked to prepare an oral intervention, accompanied by any images or videos, not exceeding 15 minutes (+5’ discussion time). Contextually, they will be asked to send a paper of their contribution for the Conference Proceedings by April 1, 2018.

Speakers will be required a participation fee of 100€, which, in addition to supporting the activities of the NUME Research Group, will entitle to 2 free copies of the Conference Proceedings.

The Conference program will be published by April 30, 2018.

The deadlines set out in this notice must be strictly observed, otherwise the contribution will be excluded from the call.

The Medici Archive Project (MAP), based at the Archivio di Stato in Florence, Italy, is delighted to announce an award from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation to support four graduate students in the field of art history over the next two years.

Since its foundation in 1993, the Medici Archive Project has grown from a digital humanities foundation into a research institution, all the while remaining a strong advocate of giving scholars direct access to original documents. Through the BIA platform (bia.medici.org), MAP has brought the contents of one of Europe’s most important early modern archival collections, the epistolary archive of the Grand Ducal Medici, to a global audience of students and scholars. Comprising some three million letters, the collection provides an unparalleled insight into the entire early modern world, from the early sixteenth through to the mid eighteenth century. Based upon this wealth of material, much of it unexplored, MAP has developed both an international fellowship of scholars and several research programs (more details can be found at our website: www.medici.org).

Thanks to the continued generous support of Samuel H. Kress Foundation, MAP is offering fellowships for graduate students to join MAP in Florence to undertake specialized archival research on-site at the Archivio di Stato, utilizing the Mediceo del Principato archival collection, as well as other collections housed in Florence and across Italy. The Samuel H. Kress Graduate Art History Fellowships will provide graduate students with the opportunity to examine and study original source materials and to receive scholarly guidance from MAP Staff.

The Fellowships

There are two Samuel H. Kress Graduate Art History Fellowships available for 2016:

A Spring/Summer Fellowship, covering a period of no less than three months, with a stipend of $8,000. The fellowship must take place within the period extending April 1st to July 31st 2016.

A Fall/Winter Fellowship, covering a period of no less than three months, with a stipend of $8,000. This fellowship must take place within the period September 1st to December 31st, 2016.

Eligibility

Candidates must either have American citizenship or be enrolled in graduate programs at universities in the United States. Dissertation topics that treat any aspect of Italian Renaissance or Baroque art history and research related to Medici family collections and patronage, will be given preference.

Details

If feasible, Kress Fellows will be able to enroll, free of charge, on our on-line paleography course before arriving in Florence. Further training in reading documents and using archival sources will be available through our archival studies seminar held at Santa Maria Novella in May/July of 2017, as well as through daily contact with MAP Staff during the course of the Fellows’ tenure. Fellows will be also encouraged to participate in a variety of MAP initiatives, including our upcoming conferences (including “Vasari at Santa Croce”, 4 March 2016 and “Against the Medici: Art and Dissent in Renaissance Italy”, 26 & 27 May 2016) and publications (our series, Medici Studies, with Brepols/Harvey Miller).

To Apply

There is no application form for this fellowship. Instead, suitable candidates are invited to send via email to gallacher@medici.org, the following documents in a collated PDF by 15 February 2016:

1) A cover letter, stating which fellowship is sought, either “Spring/Summer” OR “Fall/Winter” and the proposed dates which the fellow will be in residence.

2) A copy of the candidate’s finalized dissertation proposal, or should the proposal still be a work-in-progress, the date of the proposal defense.

3) A short essay (no more than two pages) on how the candidate’s topic will benefit from archival research.

4) An up-to-date curriculum vitae.

5) The name and email address of a scholar in the field, preferably the candidate’s supervisor, who can comment on the applicant’s qualifications and the merits of the research proposal (please do not include letters of recommendation with the application).

Please do not include supplementary material (publications, papers, syllabi, etc.) not asked for above.